Thread by @balajis

Thesis: the new business model for local journalism is the activist subscriber.

Like the single issue voter, they care about driving change on one local issue like YIMBY or SF crime.

But in addition to voting with their ballot, they vote with their wallet by subscribing.

https://twitter.com/dankinsley/status/1191874419297280001

The activist subscriber would demand:

- relentless focus on one topic
- a way to signal boost stories
- a way to vote for next story
- minimal partisanship

In the ideal case this unbundles the parties. Instead of buying an R/D bundle, get granular change on specific issues.

The activist subscriber and the journalists they fund will make local government more responsive.

Rather than voting on an R/D bundle every few years, a new pop-up publication can be set up & tested in hours to start driving immediate change on a single issue.

With a company managing these pop-up publications, once a problem is actually solved the pop-up can pay significant bonuses to reporters.

So activist subscribers are paying for results.

After bonuses, reporters could internally reassign themselves to another pop-up.

If this works, would mean:

- funds for local journalism
- more responsive local government
- incentivized results
- specific issues over bundled partisanship
- activism for those who lack time, but can subscribe or signal boost
- world peace, etc

May be worth a try.